Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico's Most Dangerous Drug Cartel

At first glance Gabriel Cardona is the poster-boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend, Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership.

Gangster Warlords

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps 500 body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit men to gun down 41 police officers and prison guards in two days. In Southern Mexico a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans.

Federal Agent Robert Mazur spent five years undercover as a money launderer to the international underworld, gaining access to the zenith of a criminal hierarchy safeguarded by a circle of dirty bankers and businessmen who quietly shape power across the globe. These men and women control multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking empires, running their organizations like public companies.

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography is an intimate look at the day-to-day dealings of a drug kingpin in the heart of the ghetto. It's also the story of a boy born in poverty in Texas who grew up in a single-parent household in the heart of South Central, who was pushed through the school system each year and came out illiterate. His options were few, and he turned to drug dealing. This untold autobiography is not only personal, but also historical in its implications.

The Unknown Mongol

This is the true story of ex-Mongols M.C. National President Scott Junior Ereckson. From a young teen, peering from behind a bush at an unknown Mongol, Scott fulfills his childhood dreams. In later years, after many experiences, he becomes one of the most respected and feared Mongols to this day.

Confessions of an Undercover Agent: Adventures, Close Calls, and the Toll of a Double Life

This true story of an ex-Marine who fought crime as an undercover cop, a narcotics agent, and finally a federal prosecutor spans a decade of crime fighting and narrow escapes. Charlie Spillers dealt with a remarkable variety of career criminals, including heroin traffickers, safecrackers, burglars, auto thieves, and members of Mafia and Mexican drug smuggling operations. In this riveting tale, the author recounts fascinating experiences and the creative methods he used to succeed and survive in a difficult and sometimes extremely dangerous underworld life.

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.

The Black Hand: The Bloody Rise and Redemption of "Boxer" Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer

Rene "Boxer" Enriquez grew up on the violent streets of East L.A., where gang fights, robberies, and drive-by shootings were fueled by rage, drugs, and alcohol. When he finally landed in prison - at the age of 19 - Enriquez found an organization that brought him the respect he always wanted: the near-mythic and widely feared Mexican Mafia, La Eme. What the organization saw in Enriquez was a young man who knew no fear and would kill anyone - justifiably or not - in the blink of an eye.

Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante

Vincent "Chin" Gigante. He started out as a professional boxer - until he found his true calling as a ruthless contract killer. His doting mother's pet name for the boy evolved into his famous alias, "Chin", a nickname that struck fear throughout organized crime as he routinely ordered the murders of mobsters who violated the Mafia code. Vincent Gigante was hand-picked by Vito Genovese to run the Genovese Family when Vito was sent to prison. Chin raked in more than $100 million for the Genovese Family, all while evading federal investigators.

Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss

Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than 50 murders. Currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado, Casso has given journalist and New York Times best-selling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen.

Under and Alone

In 1998, William Queen was a veteran law-enforcement agent with a lifelong love of motorcycles and a lack of patience with paperwork. When a "confidential informant" made contact with his boss at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, offering to take an agent inside the San Fernando chapter of the Mongols (the scourge of Southern California, and one of the most dangerous gangs in America), Queen jumped at the chance.

Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra

Mafia Prince is the first-person account of one of the most violent eras in Mafia history - "Little" Nicky Scarfo’s reign as boss of the Philly family in the 1980s - written by Scarfo’s underboss and nephew, "Crazy" Phil Leonetti. The youngest-ever underboss at the age of 31, Leonetti was at the crux of the violent downfall of the traditional American Mafia in the 1980s when he infiltrated Atlantic City after gambling was legalized, and later turned state’s evidence against his own.

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia

Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life.

The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski led a double life beyond anything ever seen on The Sopranos, becoming one of the most notorious professional assassins in American history while hosting neighborhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey. Now, after 240 hours of face-to-face interviews with Kuklinski and his wife and daughters, author Philip Carlo tells his extraordinary story.

War Dogs: How Three Stoners From Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History

In January 2007 two young stoners from Miami Beach - one a ninth-grade dropout, the other a licensed masseur - won a $300 million Department of Defense contract to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. Incredibly, instead of fulfilling the order with high-quality arms, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz - the dudes - bought cheap Communist-style surplus ammunition from Balkan gunrunners.

Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club

Narrated by the visionary founding member, Hell's Angel provides a fascinating all-access pass to the secret world of the notorious Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Sonny Barger recounts the birth of the original Oakland Hell's Angels and the four turbulent decades that followed. Hell's Angel also chronicles the way the HAMC revolutionized the look of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle and built what has become a worldwide bike-riding fraternity, a beacon for freedom-seekers the world over.

El Narco: The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels

The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Thirty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters and drug agents at the problem. But in secret, Washington is confused and divided about what to do. "Who are these mysterious figures tearing Mexico apart?" they wonder.

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia

The Brotherhoods is the chilling chronicle of the shocking crimes of NYPD detectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, notorious rogue cops convicted in April 2006 of the ultimate form of police corruption-shielding their acts behind their badges while they worked for the mob. Their crimes included participation in the murders of at least eight men, kidnapping, torture, and the betrayal of an entire generation of New York City detectives and federal agents

Despite lacking any experience with motorcycle gangs, Charles Falco infiltrated three of America's deadliest biker gangs: the Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws. In separate investigations that spanned years and coasts, Falco risked his life, suffering a fractured neck and a severely torn shoulder, working deep under cover to bring violent sociopaths to justice.

Dead Biker: Inside the Violent World of the Mexican Drug Cartels

Ned "Crash" Aiken thought he had made a clean break. He had turned on his biker brothers in the Sons of Satan and entered the FBI's witness protection program, only to end up in a different kind of prison, one of mediocre work and cheap apartments. He then fell in with the Russian mob, learning their brutal code first-hand and fleeing their organization when the stakes got too high. Between the FBI, the Sons, and the Russians, there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on the innocent-looking ex-drug trafficker.

Generation Kill

They were called a generation without heroes. Then they were called upon to be heroes. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam.

Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire

Doctor Dealer is the story of Larry Lavin, a bright, charismatic young man who rose from his working-class upbringing to win a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, earn Ivy League college and dental degrees, and buy his family a house in one of Philadelphia's most exclusive suburbs. But behind the facade of his success was a dark secret - at every step of the way he was building the foundation for a cocaine empire that would grow to generate over $60 million in annual sales.

Publisher's Summary

In 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright, acclaimed for his New York Times best-selling book Generation Kill and co-writer of the Emmy-winning HBO series it spawned, began a series of conversations with super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the fabulously successful documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Those conversations would last three years, during which time Wright came to realize that Roberts was much more than the de-facto “transportation chief” of the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of a national drug epidemic. As Wright’s tape recorder whirred and Roberts unburdened himself of hundreds of jaw-dropping tales, it became clear that perhaps no one in history had broken so many laws with such willful abandon.

Roberts, in fact, seemed to be a prodigy of criminality – but one with a remarkable self-awareness and a fierce desire to protect his son from following the same path.

American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become -- at age 22 -- one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel’s most effective smuggler.

But that’s just half the tale.

The roster of Roberts’ friends and acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the latter half of the 20th century and includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, and O.J. Simpson to Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, and Manuel Noriega.

Nothing if not colorful, Roberts surrounded himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up street car at a top speed of 180 miles per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and employed a 6”6” professional wrestler called “The Thing” as his bodyguard. Ultimately, Roberts became so powerful that he attracted the attention of the Republican Party’s leadership, was wooed by them, and even was co-opted by the CIA for which he carried out its secret agenda.

Scrupulously documented and relentlessly propulsive, this collaboration between a bloodhound journalist and one of the most audacious criminals ever is like no other crime book you’ve ever read. Jon Roberts may be the only criminal who changed the course of American history.

What the Critics Say

“The Moby Dick of mob memoirs… here is everything you've wanted to know - and much better, here is the way everything felt. Evan Wright puts you so deep inside a career in organized crime that midway through you'll begin expecting a knock on your door and a call from your lawyer.” (David Lipsky, author of the national best seller Absolutely American)

"Delivers all the guilty pleasures one expects from a gangster's memoir, but Wright's superb prose offers something more: a meditation on good and evil during the glittering decay of late 20th century civilization… One of the best books of the year.” (James L. Swanson, Edgar Award winning author of the New York Times best sellers Manhunt and Bloody Crimes)

“American Desperado is not only stranger but so much better than fiction…Captivating, addictive, and head-spinning, this one-of-a-kind book earns its place on the top shelf of true crime accounts.” (Chuck Hogan, New York Times bestselling author of Prince of Thieves, basis of the Academy Award-nominated The Town)

You'll find yourself stopping throughout this book, thinking "Wait, is this a movie?". It's not. I don't care if this guy made up EVERYTHING he claims to have done, it is absolutely intriguing! He's lived one heck of a life, and if you enjoy learning about REAL criminals, you'll love this book. Well read, too.

OK, so I wasn't expecting too much from this book. I thought it would be like other self-serving criminal biographies with minimal details.

I was so wrong. This is a compelling read. There were moments when I cringed at the horror of this man's deeds. There were moments when I felt sorry for him.

In many ways he never had a chance. That's not to say his life wasn't his fault, but his early life and genes made it very difficult for him to act otherwise. He clearly inherited his sociopath genes from his father and his mother wasn't aware enough, or smart enough, to counteract that damage.

Would you consider the audio edition of American Desperado to be better than the print version?

American Desperado is written the first person perspective of Jon Roberts and other key figures of his life. Often on the written page a change in first person narration is demarcated by extra spacing between paragraphs. When the book changes perspective the audio version changes narrators. I found that the style helped cement when the novel changed perspectives and allowed for an easier listen.

What did you like best about this story?

Jon Roberts is an interesting figure because he is un-apologetically bad. Similar, stories to Jon's have been told in both novels and films. However, this story is unique because it does not allow you any empathy for the main character. I like to say that everyone is the hero of his own story but that is just not true for Mr. Roberts. Jon Roberts is unquestionably the villain of his story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I really enjoyed this book. The reaction to the main character is a visceral hatred. This may be the only autobiography ever written designed to slander it's subject.

I really liked the way the writer let John Roberts tell his story unobtrusively. And I liked the set-up at the beginning when the writer (Evan Wright) explains how he's laid out the book. That prepared me for what came. The voice of John Roberts comes across as sympathetic, brutal, and worthy of attention. This is a man who inhabits most people's nightmares, but despite that, he comes across as genuine.

Who was your favorite character and why?

John...of course.

Which scene was your favorite?

My favorite scene was Hee Haw Junction (I think that was the name). It was pretty hilarious how they got out of that.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

There were many parts in this book where I was horrified to find myself laughing. After all, this is a story about an unrepentant murderer and self-described sociopath. But still...some parts were just funny. In fact, I was less horrified by "John" than by the incredible ineptitude and lack of morality in law enforcement...at least as it was portrayed by John, who clearly has a vested interest in making them look that way.

Any additional comments?

The reader for John was amazing. He completely pulled off the changes in John's moods as appropriate to the story. In fact, the reader was so good, there was a subtle difference between John's younger days and his older, "wiser" days.

I do not know if all of this is true. I believe it is just for the simple fact that it's too brutal and too honest. Amazing and chilling insight into a criminal mind and all that goes with a criminal life. I had always been life so many intrigued by the world of the mafia and I do believe it's because Hollywood has glamorized and romanticized it. This book brought it down to earth and showed you the brutal truth about what a cold blooded violent institution the mafia and the people in it really are. This was the first book or movie or anything I'd ever been exposed to that basically humanized the mafia for what it really was and then basically dismissed it as the subject of this book grew past it. The insight into the mind and world of a violent murderer and how he became to be what he became was both fascinating and terrifying. I could not stop listening. I finished it and immediately began it over again.

What made the experience of listening to American Desperado the most enjoyable?

This was a great read due to my love of the crime genre and the honesty that the author portrays. The witness accounts does a great job of telling both sides of the story whether it conflicts with the authors side or not

Who was your favorite character and why?

Helllllooooo!!!! Jon Roberts! He lived an amazing life and seemed like he was as rational as one can be in the life he chose to live.

Which character – as performed by Mark Bramhall – was your favorite?

Jon Roberts! He sounded like the same narrator from Goodfellas to me. I don't think it was Ray Liota but he was the voice of him in that movie.

I was impressed by the Cocaine Cowboys documentary, and Jon Roberts on screen. Here we find the basic grandiose 1950s-60s male American teen-to-young-adult personality: plenty of drugs, a very movie-influenced imagination, all outrageous stunts and stories. It always centers on the one guy and always is beyond reality, more violent and risky, more famous people there, right in the crux of every big event. Most of these guys got a little humility or just burned out and disappeared; some are still here to drone on over dinner about this or that big prank. A lot grew out of the G.I. men's culture going back to WW2. But this guy still has to be the star of every show in history in his own mind. (Or at least, a clever salesman of books now, with a keen sense of what the "true crime genre" buyer wants to hear.) Yeah, some of it is doubtless true, some "larger than life" (in a very scumbag way). But hey, he was everywhere and met everyone? He was a jungle warrior in 'Nam, diving out of planes into the jungles, but there's no record of Jon's military service? Faced off with John Gotti with gangs of guys in Gotti's basement (how did his army get into Gotti's basement past Gotti's guards yet all carrying guns? I get all these big question marks. Dosed Ed Sullivan with acid, tracked down Sullivan's physician, intimidated the physician and effectively blackmailed Sullivan to shut up? There is a difference between movies and reality; the actors survive these incredible scenes because it is according to a script. The enemies are playing along, the effects people carefully set up the stunts and use pro stunt personnel. There are many takes to get it perfect. Physicians and insurance companies stand by. It is in my opinion astronomically improbable that a real guy could squeak through all these daily death-defying events (straight out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, far surpassing any Scorsese movie) and survive. Five times, ten times, two dozen times, OK, but hundreds of times? This is like the peak moments of continuous movies end-to-end. Always as colorful and dramatic as a movie? At is as if the guy is still hanging around a nightclub, BS'ing the impressionable. That is his schtick. Dude, even the 80s was decades ago. (Yawn.) However, If a tenth of this is true, it is an amazing story, of a real sadistic creep. (In cleverer moments, he sees himself as a reflective of the society's dark side; hired to be what he was, in effect, by people who wanted to keep their hands clean but brush up against his danger; shades of Mike Tyson.) But its all hyped to the point of exhaustion. One way or another, Jon Roberts sold a cinematic sort of drama to the dumb money of this world, and made out pretty well. Is he still doing that here?

This book is nothing but an endless litany of sociopathic cruelty. One ugly, gruesome anecdote of absolute depravity after another ... and another ... and another.

After the first 10 or 15 descriptive stories of skinning people alive, breaking bones, knee-capping, cutting off appendages, et. al., you've heard all you need to hear about killing and hurting people, and know all you need to know about Jon Roberts. After the next 30 or 40 such stories, you don't become numb or inured to them, just increasingly sick and tired of them ... more disgusted, more repulsed, more bored by the whole thing.

Though few and far between, every so often there's a brief passage about Pablo Escobar or the logistics of smuggling which feels like a breath of fresh air. But, a few minutes later, it's back to beatings and brain matter, stabbings and entrails ... all of it delivered with a shrug ... like, "eh, whaddaya gonna do?"